1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates broadly to a method for building a card playing deck formed from a set of collectible trading cards and an associated card game.
2. Background of the Invention
Card games have been played and enjoyed by many throughout history. Both adults and children play card games for a variety of reasons including pure enjoyment and entertainment, for the thrill of competition, or to develop mental thought processes.
A particular type of card game is a collectible or trading card game. Collectible card games utilize cards from a person""s collection of cards. In contrast to a traditional fifty-two card deck, for example, a person is required to build their own deck in a collectible card game. That is, a person collects cards that are then added into their own personal deck of cards.
For example, a person may obtain the collectible cards through a period of time by trading cards or purchasing the cards. These collectible cards may be packaged and sold alone. Alternatively, the collectible cards may be included as a promotion in a product, such as cereal. Further, the collectible cards may be distributed by store owners, vendors or other sellers.
This invention provides a method for forming a card deck from a larger number of cards. A player may potentially collect hundreds of collectible cards. As the number of collectible cards increases, so does the complexity of the card game. Further, a player having substantially more collectible cards than an opposing player may be at a substantial advantage over that opposing player. However, the method of the invention provides a process to limit the number of collectible cards, of a certain type, in the card deck of a person or persons. Accordingly, the invention controls the composition of cards in a card deck.
Specifically, in accordance with the method of the invention, a player chooses cards, for that player""s xe2x80x9cplaying deck,xe2x80x9d from potentially hundreds of collected cards. According to the invention, each collectible card is assigned to a particular class. The composition of the playing deck is controlled in that the playing deck may only include so many cards from each particular class. The class of a particular card may be indicated in any suitable manner. In accordance with one embodiment, the class is indicated by a series of colored dots.
The number of classes may be widely varied. Also, the number of cards in a class may be varied. In accordance with one embodiment, a user may have more cards of one class than another class. Further, the basis upon which the collectible cards are assigned to a particular class may be widely varied. For example, the cards may be assigned based on the power of the cards, versatility of the cards, commonality of the cards, the type of card, as well as any other suitable attribute. The size of the deck may be widely varied. In accordance with the invention, a simple and systematic manner is provided to control the number of cards per class in a deck.
In further explanation of aspects of the invention, most card games have just one deck of cards. An example is the traditional 52 card deck. The deck is broken down into four types of cards including hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades. However, a collectible card game has hundreds of different cards that a player may collect.
In accordance with the card game of the invention, a player chooses cards from his personal collection of cards. As a result, the player may compile her deck using the cards that will most benefit her to win the game. However, the player must choose the cards in a specific way in accordance with the method of the invention . Specifically, each card is assigned to a class. In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, a player may choose only ten cards from each class. Provided that there are six classes, this will result in a total number of sixty cards in each player""s deck. Each player has his or her own deck. Illustratively, one player may have a xe2x80x9cgood sidexe2x80x9d deck, while the other player may have a xe2x80x9cevil sidexe2x80x9d deck.
The players may choose the cards for their sixty card deck in any of a wide variety of ways limited only by the imagination. For example, the players may choose the cards based on the versatility of the cards. Further, the player may choose the cards based on the strength of the card or based on the characters on the cards. These other aspects of the game will become clearer with the description as provided hereinafter.
In accordance with one exemplary embodiment of the invention, one player has a good side deck, and the other player has an evil side deck. Each of the good side deck and the evil side deck are similarly broken down into different types of cards. For example, the good side deck may included character cards, weapon cards, location cards, reinforcement cards, as well as ship or transport cards. However, it should be appreciated that the method of the invention utilizing classes of cards may be applied to any of a wide variety of card games.
The cards of the game may be sold in any of a wide variety of ways. The cards may be sold at toy stores, card and comic shops, game stores or book stores, for example. The cards may be sold in sixty card starter sets, for example. Alternatively, the cards may be sold in ten card booster packs or one hundred and thirty-two card collector""s boxes, for example.
As described above, it should be appreciated that the method of the invention may be used with any of a wide variety of card games. Illustratively, the method of the invention may be used in a game in which all players use only one deck. Alternatively, the method of the invention may be used in a game where each player has their own deck.
It should be appreciated that the invention may be used in conjunction with a variety of other card game features, such as those described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/526,568, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,322,077, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
As described in detail below, the invention provides a method of controlling the composition of a playing deck of cards comprising the steps of providing a collection of cards; assigning each card in the collection into a class, and choosing cards from the collection of cards to form a playing deck, the choosing including limiting the number of cards in each class to a predetermined number of cards. In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, each of the cards in the collection of cards includes printed indicia indicating the class to which that card belongs. The indicia may be a series of symbols. Illustratively, one of the symbols is colored to indicate the class. Further, each symbol may be a dot. For example, the predetermined number of cards in each class is ten and the number of classes of cards is six. The assignment of each card to a class may be performed based on attributes of each card in any suitable manner.
It should be appreciated that the card does not necessarily have to include a symbol or other indicia to indicate the class of the card. Alternatively, a list of classes may be provided. That is, the list of classes provides information regarding the class that each of the cards is assigned. Accordingly, a card player looking at a particular card alone would not be able to ascertain which class that the particular card belonged. However, the list of classes would provide a key or legend, for example, such that the card player could determine the class of a particular card.
In accordance with an embodiment of the invention, each of the cards is a physical object. However, as described below, the method of the invention may be implemented in an electronic card game using a suitable electronic operating system. The electronic operating system may be a computer system, for example.
The method of the invention may be used in conjunction with a trading card or a playing card. A trading card may be characterized as a card intended primarily for trading amongst persons. In contrast, a playing card may be characterized as a card intended primarily for playing. Illustratively, a trading card may be more oriented towards specific celebrities or super heroes, for example.
In accordance with the method of the invention, the invention is implemented in the in form of a collection of collectible playing cards for use by a card player. The collection might be characterized as comprising a xe2x80x9cplaying deckxe2x80x9d and a xe2x80x9creservoir deck.xe2x80x9d The playing deck includes a plurality of cards wherein each of the cards is assigned to one of a plurality of classes, the playing deck consists of, i.e., is limited to, a predetermined number of cards in each of the plurality of classes. The reservoir deck includes a plurality of cards wherein each of the cards is also assigned to a class, similar to the cards in the playing deck. The card player may exchange a card of a particular class in the playing deck for a card of that same particular class in the reservoir deck. As a result, the card, which was previously a playing deck card, becomes a reservoir deck card. Also, the card, which was previously a reservoir deck card, becomes a playing deck card.
The class of each of the cards in the reservoir deck or in the playing deck may illustratively be represented by a symbol on the card. The symbol on the card may include a plurality of circles, one of the plurality of circles colored to reflect the class of each card. For example, the playing deck may consist of, i.e., be limited to, sixty cards. Each of the cards is assigned to one of six classes. The playing deck may consists, i.e., be limited to, ten cards per class.
The reservoir deck includes an unlimited number of cards. That is, the number of cards in the reservoir deck may be hundreds of cards or more from which a card player chooses which cards to include in his or her playing deck.